Volunteers gather to help, give aid

Residents of the Walt Bellamy neighborhood gathered at the St. John’s Missionary Baptist Church for a Friday night block party celebration of hot dogs, hamburgers, watermelon and devotion from Seeds.

Photo by Chuck Beckley/Sun Journal Staff

By Bill Hand, Sun Journal Staff

Published: Saturday, August 9, 2014 at 08:32 PM.

Watching the Seed Ministry at work can put one in mind of what ministry was probably like in the early church.

Throughout the past week this “grassroots Christian group,” as the ministry describes itself on its Facebook page, has swarmed about the territory that includes Trent Court, Walt Bellamy Drive and the New Bern Towers, praying with families, providing daily meals, cutting grass, plucking up trash and giving St. John Missionary Baptist Church a good painting-over.

As many as 400 volunteers showed up throughout the week.

Friday ended the week of community ministry with a picnic and celebration at St. John Church.

“The basic vision is to love, and reach Craven County,” said Cheryl McCarthy, a member of the organization.

Volunteers not involved in picking up litter or painting knocked on the doors of local homes, asking the people who answered if there was anything they could do to help them out.

McCarthy said the help being offered goes beyond prayer requests or other small issues.

Watching the Seed Ministry at work can put one in mind of what ministry was probably like in the early church.

Throughout the past week this “grassroots Christian group,” as the ministry describes itself on its Facebook page, has swarmed about the territory that includes Trent Court, Walt Bellamy Drive and the New Bern Towers, praying with families, providing daily meals, cutting grass, plucking up trash and giving St. John Missionary Baptist Church a good painting-over.

As many as 400 volunteers showed up throughout the week.

Friday ended the week of community ministry with a picnic and celebration at St. John Church.

“The basic vision is to love, and reach Craven County,” said Cheryl McCarthy, a member of the organization.

Volunteers not involved in picking up litter or painting knocked on the doors of local homes, asking the people who answered if there was anything they could do to help them out.

McCarthy said the help being offered goes beyond prayer requests or other small issues.

“It includes housing issues, other needs,” she said.

Seeds Board member Brent Cooper said, “Everybody has been coming together without any need of recognizing an individual church. It’s just about people coming together to serve other people.”

Seeds is not directly run by any specific denomination or church, and the volunteers represented a broad spectrum of people from various congregations.

Cooper said the week-long outreach is more of a launching of the ministry than a single program.

Children and teens were involved as well as adults.

Cameron Hart is a teen who moved to New Bern from Charlotte in 2012. He found his faith here.

“I met Pastor Jason, it was Temple Baptist at the time, and he led me to the Lord,” he said.

He has been bold in proclaiming his faith this past week.

“I heard about this and I came Wednesday night. I walked around and prayed with people … last night I met a lady named Miss Kim. We’re walking around, we’re picking up trash, just loving on Craven. And she’s like, ‘Can you pray for me?’ And I said, ‘Yes, ma’am, I think I could.’ She asked for peace. We prayed for her and she started crying. It was very emotional. It touched me.”

Cooper said that people within the community ended up volunteering and helping as well.

“On Monday night, at the start of it, we had this group of kids that were outside playing,” he said. “They came up and said, ‘What are you doing?’ We were picking up trash on the street,” he said, “And we said, ‘We’re just cleaning up and loving on this neighborhood, making things nice and showing we care.’ And they said, ‘Can we help?’”

The children gathered trash that day and helped visit homes the rest of the week he said. He pointed to a number of children playing volley ball and playing other games during the picnic. “And here they are. They’ve been with us all week.”

Persons interested in working with the ministry can call for information at 540-808-3409.